In Her Words

Datus Hiatus

Our girl in San Francisco takes a dater break

-Shoegirl 

It's been a week since I started my datus hiatus, and I already feel better. The pressure to mitigate the rat's nest of my emotions is gone. The need to make decisions about so-so men (he's nice, but ... ) on the fly - vanished. The constant bar scanning while out with my friends has been replaced with actual listening sessions. And naturally my free time has increased exponentially. I think men had accounted for 95 percent of my brain's clutter. Now my mind has time to think about more important issues such as work, SF's summer concert schedule and finding a fashionable triathalon suit (no small feat). Oddly enough, thinking about chocolate has also started to take up more space in my brain.

I did indeed meet up with the herbalist/poker dealer/snowboarder/life coach I'd met at Speed Dating the week before, but in the spirit of hiatus I decided to play the "let's be friends" card. After all, engaging conversations and shared hobbies (um, snowboarding, not herbs) don't have to lead into a whirlwind romance. It seemed to work. After my "friendship" bomb was dropped, he still wanted to do social activities together - as pals. But much to my dismay, my male audience scoffed at this development.

Women always seem to want men as friends (less drama, more adventure) ... but do men in their 30s really want to seek out new feminine buddies? My good male friend CB explained it to me this way: "If friendships grow gradually over time (usually through friends in common), sure. But any guy that wants to leap into a new friendship with a hot chick is only trying to sleep with her. He'll play the nice friend card for a while but is hoping that she'll change her mind after a few too many dirty martinis."

Remind my to lay off the olive juice whenever I'm out with my male compadres.

Sigh. Why can't we all go back to college, where everyone was friends first? Back then, I had more male counterparts than female. Fun weekends spent rock climbing and strumming guitars in platonic bliss! Of course, in those days, I also wore Birkenstocks and considered Chap-Stick makeup.

Well, no matter. I am determined to remain chaste in Jimmy Choos. Hopefully my datus hiatus spirit will take over the city, and we'll all revert back to collegelike attitudes. Minus the Birkenstocks.

Have you ever felt compelled to take a dater break? If so, what drove you to it, and how long did it last?

Shoegirl comes to us courtesy of The San Francisco Scene.